Henry James’ Narrative Technique In The Golden Bowl

The Golden Bowl is the most excellent novel among Henry James’ numerous novels.Many critics lay emphasis on his international topics, pay attention to his moral issues andfocus on his cultural integration, etc. And in the meanwhile, the narrative technique is still aninteresting subject.Describing what the characters think in the writer’s mind is a necessary commodity of anovel. Henry James took much notice on his characters’ psychological life and developed awriting skill which demands characters to express themselves through their thoughts. FromJames’ opinion, characters need not act much. They should express their feelings andcharacteristics from what they speak in detail. All the ideas advanced by James havecontributed to the development of the theory of the novel. In his writing practice, Jamesalways put emphasis on such theories, trying his best to explore a perfect perspective betweencontent and form, so as to create the most wonderful art form.This kind of art is perfectly embodied in James’ last novel The Golden Bowl. Throughthe analysis of the novel, the author of this thesis tries to explore James’ narrative techniquefrom her own point of view.Besides the INTRODUCTION and CONCLUSION, there are three chapters in thisthesis. Chapter I introduces the unique narrative point of view. Amerigo, Maggie acts as thecenter of consciousness of the novel respectively in the first and second half of the novel.Chapter II introduces three ways of describing characters directly. By means of dialogue,silence and the narrated monologue, James describes the psychology of the characters directly.Chapter III is about the indirect description of psychology—through free indirect discourse.In this part, the author analyzes James’ narrated technique in indirect way.This paper makes an analysis of James’ use of narrative techniques to describe thepsychology of the characters. By quoting some typical examples in The Golden Bowl, theauthor attempts to prove that James successfully applied in his writing of his own theories inthe novel.